Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 42: To ask the Minister for Finance if he will allocate additional funding to the customs services to purchase additional dogs in order to crackdown on the amount of drugs coming into here undetected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18481/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the Customs Service currently deploys 13 detector dog teams at strategic locations throughout the country. The dogs are used to detect drugs, tobacco and cash. Passive dogs are used as this allows for the screening of passengers as well as merchandise and baggage. The detector dog resource is part only of the Commissioners' response to the threat posed by drug smuggling. Intelligence gathering and co-operation at both national and international levels are also vitally important.

In keeping with their commitment to the Government's National Drug Strategy, the Commissioners have considerably enhanced their drug detection capability in recent years on a number of fronts. In respect of detector dog teams alone, the number of these has been increased from 6 in 1993, to 9 in 2003 and now stands at 13. They have also deployed two Revenue Customs Cutters and two mobile X-Ray scanning machines. This represents a considerable investment on the part of the State in the Customs Service in the fight against drug smuggling.

The Commissioners have advised me that the complement of detector dogs will be reviewed regularly as part of the ongoing process of risk assessment and resource allocation within the Office.